Due to the excessive use of natural resources in the contemporary world, the importance of ecological and environmental condition modeling has increased. Wetlands and cities represent the natural and artificial strategic areas that affect ecosystem conditions. Changes in the ecological conditions of these areas have a great impact on the conditions of the global ecosystem. Therefore, modeling spatiotemporal variations of the ecological conditions in these areas is critical. This study was aimed at comparing degrees of variation among surface ecological conditions due to natural and unnatural factors. Consequently, the surface ecological conditions of Gomishan city and Gomishan wetland in Iran were modeled for a period of 30 years, and the spatiotemporal variations were evaluated and compared with each other. To this end, 20 Landsat 5, 7, and 8, and 432 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), monthly land surface temperature (LST) (MOD11C3) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (MOD13C3) products were utilized. The surface ecological conditions were modeled according to the Remote Sensing-based Ecological Index (RSEI), and the spatiotemporal variation of the RSEI values in the study area (Gomishan city, Gomishan wetland) were evaluated and compared with each other. According to MODIS products, the mean of the LST and NDVI variance values for the study area (Gomishan city, Gomishan wetland) were obtained to be 6.5 °C (2.1, 12.1) and 0.009 (0.005, 0.013), respectively. The highest LST and NDVI temporal variations were found for Gomishan wetland near the Caspian Sea. According to Landsat images, Gomishan wetland and Gomishan city have the highest and lowest temporal variations in surface biophysical characteristics, respectively. The mean RSEI for the study area (Gomishan city, Gomishan wetland) was 0.43 (0.65, 0.29), respectively. Additionally, the mean Coefficient of Variation (CV) of RSEI for the study area (Gomishan city, Gomishan wetland) was 0.10 (0.88, 0.51), respectively. The surface ecological conditions of Gomishan city were worse than those of the Gomishan wetland at all dates. Temporal variations in the surface ecological conditions of Gomishan wetland were greater than those of the study area and Gomishan city. These results can provide useful and effective information for environmental planning and decision-making to improve ecological conditions, protect the environment, and support sustainable ecosystem development.

A comparative analysis of climatic and soil salinity characteristics of the deserts of Central Asia, including deserts of the Turan Depression, the Gobi Desert, and deserts of the Dzungar and Tarim depressions was performed. The climatic characteristics—the degree of aridity, the degree of continentality, and the amount and regime of precipitation—are different in these deserts. No direct relationships between the areas occupied by the automorphic salt-affected soils and the aridity of the climate are observed in the studied regions. In the automorphic landscapes of Asian deserts, the degree and chemistry of the soil salinization and the distribution of salt-affected soils are controlled by the history of the particular territories rather than by their modern climatic conditions. The presence and properties of the salt-bearing rocks and the eolian migration of salts play the most significant role. The deficit of moisture in the modern climate favors the preservation of salt accumulations in places of their origin. The specific features of the climate, including the regime of precipitation, affect the redistribution of salts in the profiles of automorphic salt-affected soils. An increase in the degree of climatic continentality is accompanied by the decrease in the intensity of weathering and initial accumulation of salts. A different situation is observed in the soils of hydromorphic desert landscapes, in which the degree of salinity of the surface horizons and the area occupied by salt-affected soils are directly influenced by the modern climatic conditions.

Methodological basics of the study and quantitative assessment of pedodiversity are discussed. It is shown that the application of various indices and models of pedodiversity can be feasible for...

Humanity depends on the existence of healthy soils, both for the production of food and for ensuring a healthy, biodiverse environment, among other functions. COVID-19 is threatening food availability in many places of the world due to the disruption of food chains, lack of workforce, closed borders and national lockdowns. As a consequence, more emphasis is being placed on local food production, which may lead to more intensive cultivation of vulnerable areas and to soil degradation. In order to increase the resilience of populations facing this pandemic and future global crises, transitioning to a paradigm that relies more heavily on local food production on soils that are carefully tended and protected through sustainable management is necessary. To reach this goal, the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recommends five active strategies: improved access to land, sound land use planning, sustainable soil management, enhanced research, and investments in education and extension. The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. – Wendell Berry (American novelist)

The results of soil studies performed in 2005–2009 at the first experimental plot of the Arshan’-Zelmen Research Station of the Institute of Forest Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences are discussed. The post-reclamation state (about 55 years after reclamation) of the soils under forest shelterbelts and adjacent croplands in the rainfed agriculture was studied. The long-term efficiency of forest reclamation and crop-growing technologies developed in the 1950s by the Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute and the Institute of Forest to reclaim strongly saline solonetzic soils was proved. In 55 years, strongly saline sodic solonetzes with sulfate-chloride and chloride-sulfate composition of salts were replaced by agrogenic soils with new properties. Under forest shelterbelts, where deep (40–60 cm) plowing was performed, the soils were transformed into slightly saline solonetzic agrozems with slight soda salinization in the upper meter and with dealkalized plowed and turbated horizons (0–20(40) cm). Under the adjacent cropland subjected to the influence of the shelterbelts on the soil water regime, strongly saline solonetzes were transformed into solonchakous agrosolonetzes with slight soda salinization in the upper 50 cm. In the plow layer, the content of exchangeable sodium decreased to 4–12% of the sum of exchangeable cations. An increased alkalinity and the presence of soda were found in the middle-profile horizons of the anthropogenically transformed soils.

In the past three decades, a trend of an increase in the climatic humidity has been observed in the southeast of European Russia; it has been accompanied by the rising groundwater level. The study of solonetzes at the Dzhanybek Research Station in the north of the Caspian Lowland indicates that the recent climate changes are reflected in the soil microfabric. A comparative examination of thin sections prepared from the soil samples taken in 1982 and in 2002 from the same points characterizing virgin and reclaimed solonetzes has shown the following changes in the soil microfabric: (a) an increase in the amount and diversity of the mesofauna excrements, (b) the accumulation of fine plant detritus at various stages of decomposition, (c) an increase in the content of the dispersed and flocculated brown-colored microforms of humus and charcoal particles in the surface horizons, and (d) the formation of hydrogenic gypsum in the middle and lower soil horizons. The character of changes in the microfabric of virgin solonchakous solonetzes attests to the enhancement of the eluviation of the silty-clayey-humus substances, solodization, and gleyzation. In the reclaimed solonetzes, the artificially turbated horizons have been subjected to desalination, and the gypsiferous and calcareous pedofeatures inherited from the previous stages of soil formation have been destroyed.